The Order
by glitzydancingshoes
Summary: Andrew decides to bring together his very own League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
1. The Order

**The Order**

A/N : We're using Character's from BtvS, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the movie), Smallville, X-Men (the movie), Indiana Jones, PotC, Spiderman (the movie)

Disclaimer: We don't _actually_ own any of these characters; we're just playing with them! We're honestly not making any money from this…as you can probably tell.

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Chapter One

A single pair of footsteps broke the silence in one of San Francisco's many cemeteries. Black boots stepped clumsily through the dry leaves that clogged the path. Faith – one of the two original vampire Slayers – was bored. Patrolling just wasn't as fun as it used to be, but with all the new little slayers busy training with Andrew, lucky them, and a few of the other watchers, she was left to do the job. Not that she really minded being alone; too many teenage slayers tending to get more than a little annoying.

Still, slaying with B was always more fun than doing it alone. There was something special about having someone to actually talk to, and synchronized slayage was always cool. But, Buffy and Dawn were off in Europe with some other slayers, and here she was, in San Francisco; the new hellmouth. Never a day off, though tonight's patrol was definitely slow. Not one vampire yet, and she'd already been out a couple of hours. The stake in her right hand was getting restless.

In fact, when she thought about it, the last few patrols had been pretty uneventful. Man, where had all the vamps gone? This place used to be teeming with them. Come to think of it, the last demon she'd fought had been that Polgara. Now, he was ugly. Big, brown, slimy, and weird skewer things that came out of his arms. One of those things had given her a mean slash across her stomach. Eight stitches, ouch. Well, anyway, if the last few nights were anything to go by, looked like tonight was gonna be a quiet night.

She reluctantly turned her body to walk back. San Francisco was such a drag. The hotel where she was staying was the pits, and there was always the chance that she would run into R2D2 (Andrew) and his band of merry slayers. She trudged slowly back over the graves, weaving her way in and out of tombstones. Then, out of the blue, her senses tingled, and her brain started to buzz.

_Vampire?_ Her fists automatically rose, and a ruby smile rose to her face; this could be just the thing to help her work off some frustration, if her sense were anything to go by. Whatever it was that was approaching, it was powerful in a huge way – that nifty vampire-sensors that she seemed to have were going off like alarm bells. Sure, it wasn't the kind of feeling she got when there was a vamp in the area, so maybe a demon. Either, way, this was going to be a kick-ass fight.

Her mahogany hair swung loose through the air as she turned around to locate the presence. It wasn't exactly hard to find; a group of around six, maybe seven men in a practically deserted graveyard aren't exactly hard to locate. Especially people who were giving off as odd vibes as these guys were. With the exception of Andrew – who was leading the group towards her with an anxious look on his face – she could tell that they weren't exactly what you'd call human. Of course, they looked identical to normal men, but so did vampires. And, some of their dress sense was extremely odd.

Andrew? Shouldn't he be watching some mini-slayers? And who the hell were these guys? Must be some of Andrews geeky friends, on their way to some dork-convention or another. Though thinking about it, some of them didn't look all that strange, just the ones dressed in lame costumes. Why would anyone wear a pirate hat out in public? Another guy was carrying what looked like a whip and was wearing a cowboy hat, and one of them had dress sense that could only belong to a gay man.

Andrew moved towards her. "Hey Faith," said his uncertain voice. "Um…these are some of my friends. They wanted to um… meet you." Andrew was such a wimp. If he wanted to fight her, he could at least do it himself, instead of hiring some bunch of dodgily-dressed hit men. Well, Faith supposed, her against Andrew was too easy. This would make it a little more interesting.

She didn't speak, merely sized up her opponents. Seven of them, most of which were radiating some kind of unearthly power, so she'd have to be careful. Of course, it hurt slightly that it was Andrew heading up this little band, but it wasn't exactly the first time that the Watcher's Council had taken a dislike to her. She'd figured that it might be different now that Giles was in charge but…obviously not. So, she would fight.

If she'd been B, now would be around the right time to make a cute little quip and then wait for the bad guy to make the first move; she wasn't Buffy. Her foot moved out to knock the nearest guy in the stomach, followed by a smooth punch to his face. Her hand gained a few small cuts when his glasses broke beneath her fist. Judging from the way the group glanced at each other for a moment before spanning out around her, this was going to be challenging. The first person to move forwards and challenge her – a teenager only a few years younger than herself – barely even reacted when she put all her strength behind a hit to the face. In fact, if anything, her hand hurt more than his face.

Faith stepped back. God, her fist hurt! She shook off her hand, then lunged in with a powerful kick, which was somehow avoided by her opponent. He was moving so fast her eyes couldn't keep up with him, she just watched the blurred image zigzag away from her. She ran forward and threw a fist at him, trying to catch him off guard, but just missing. What the hell was this guy? Superman or something? She was preparing to kick him again, when she felt a sharp pain in her side.

Faith turned her glaring eyes to her side. You gotta be kidding? The slightly older man with the stupid cowboy hat, stood poised, ready for battle, brandishing a whip. No way! She saw the man aim the whip for her belly, but didn't react in time. A razor-like burning cut through her, and she looked down to her stomach. The slash from the whip had split the scab from the Polgara, and blood was trickling down her skin. "Damn it!" She glanced up again, just in time to see the whip coming towards her, and this time she was prepared. Her hand snapped out and grabbed the whip in mid-air, and with a swift heave, she snatched the whip from his hand. Faith paused, smiled sweetly at the cowboy, and then sent him flying backwards with a fierce kick.

She glanced backwards as the teenager ran – well, blurred – towards his friend, "Indiana!" He called out as he knelt next to him. Faith figured that the super-speeding teen would be busy for a while – she hadn't picked up on any supernatural vibe from the cowboy – so glanced around for her next opponent, hands still raised defensively. Her chest was heaving and her breath was laboured after fighting only a couple of these guys, but she knew there were more. There were _always _more of these hard-to-kill baddies. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the first guy she'd hit starting to get himself together, but figured she should try to take some of the others out before she started on him again.

Her dark eyes settled on the pirate, who had happily plonked himself down on one of the tombstones and pulled out a dirty bottle from somewhere in his stupid costume. Honestly, where did Andrew get these guys? Still, she could see an old sword hanging by his waist, so presumably he knew how to fight. _Great_ she thought as she made her way towards him, stake still in her hand, _more trainer fighters, just what I need._ However, as she moved towards the guy he merely raised his bottle of drink at her, bowed his head and then fell off the headstone, apparently unconscious. The slayer rolled her eyes and turned back to the rest of the group, one eyebrow raised.

It was all Faith could do to keep herself from bursting out with laughter as she looked at the next contender. This guy was unreal! Not to mention the poofy hair and the frilly shirt, this guy looked like he was from the last century. He swept a sword up from his side and with a grand gesture pointed it toward her. _Shit!_ She didn't have a weapon. In a moment of quick thinking, Faith dropped to her knees and rolled over to the side, towards the unconscious pirate. She snatched his sword from his belt as she stood up in a fluid movement. Faith clutched the heavy weapon in her hand, stakes were so much lighter. She thrust forward, trying several moves to throw the sword from his hand, none of which worked. Man, this guy was one experienced fighter!

However, he may have been experienced, but he was cocky, and Faith soon managed to find an opening to strike. With a burst of strength, she shoved the sword through his chest. Faith watched the man's face change from arrogant to shocked in a matter of seconds. She withdrew the sword from his chest, but instead of falling to his knees, he smiled wickedly. This was all the motivation Faith needed to kick him aside, and as she did so, she watched Andrew, standing behind a gravestone with a distressed expression displayed on his face.

"Guys… guys, please stop fighting!" his weak, pathetic voice cried. "Like, this is not what's supposed to happen! Guys!" He folded his arms, and then a tad huffily, protested, "This would not happen in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Yeah, that's right, they would probably be fighting some big evil right now, instead of fighting each other!" Faith shook her head in disbelief. What a nerd!

She was sorely tempted to just move over there and punch his face so hard that every single comic book and science fiction film was knocked out of it, but the second she took a step forwards, somebody tackled her from the side. A grunt escaped from Faith's chest, and she could feel the blood from her old wound leaking through her red vest. She was probably going to need some more stitches in it, if she ever lived through this fight.

When the stars stopped circling her head, and her eyes slowly came back into focus, she could see a guy standing in front of her. Her head hurt like hell – she'd probably bashed it against the tree she was cornered against – and there was the coppery taste of her own blood in her mouth. The guy in front of her had her backed up against a knotted tree, and she was guessing he was the one who had tackled her. Automatically, she moved to attack him. She swore silently when she realised that the sword had been lost some where along the line, and instead balled her fist into a fist and aimed it for his face.

Though it hit him, he just cracked his neck slightly and all the redness that should have eventually turned into a bruise faded away. Faith's blurry eyes watched as his own fist curled and was brought up to face level, however they widened when three long blades broke out of the skin, so that two were on either side of her neck and third settled against her throat. She swallowed uncomfortably, but she knew better than to struggle; one false move and she was skewered on that blade. "What the hell are you people?" The slayer asked as the others she'd been fighting moved to flank the man who had her pinned.

"Ooh! We're, like, this major evil-fighting club and we fight evil and we're like the Justice League, where we're all crime-fighting super heroes and fight evil and we protect innocent people and we fight evil and…would you like to join us?"


	2. Back to Base

**The Order**

Disclaimer: We don't _actually_ own any of these characters; we're just playing with them! We're honestly not making any money from this…as you can probably tell.

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Chapter Two

Half an hour later, Faith was still wondering why on earth she was doing this. There was the hellmouth to think about, all those mini-slayers, all that fun responsibility … and here she was sitting in a mini-bus so that she could join Andrew's little gang. It didn't make a whole lot of sense. What if the apocalypse came while she was gone? Sure, there'd be everyone else to take care of that, but she had to worry. Surely jumping into a vehicle with a bunch of strangers – well, she already knew Andrew, but he was strange enough to be called a stranger – wasn't normal behaviour?

She hadn't moved her gaze from the window the entire time she'd been in here, but she could feel some of the others sneaking glances at her. As San Francisco faded away into the distance, the conversation from the others began to fade away with it. And, while Andrew's weird babbling was fairly annoying, she wanted the noise back, so that she wasn't just left with her thoughts and a hushed silence.

Faith felt the mini-bus draw to a halt beneath her, and the heard Andrew pipe up, "We're here! This is it. Faith, um…this is like our lair, you know, where we like live, and train, so we can fight the dark battles of evil." She flicked her eyes up to the building. She couldn't really see much of it, well, it was dark. What she could see was that it was huge. It must have cost a fortune. Man, where did Andrew get the money for this place? Rob a bank?

The house seemed daunting and shadowy, though maybe that was just due to the fact that it was enveloped in darkness. Its tall, sturdy walls cast a silhouette over Faith and the rest of Andrews little club, and Faith felt a chill ripple through her. Andrew stepped up to the striking doorway, and in a dramatic manner, forced open the doors. Well, at least, Faith guessed that had been his plan. In fact, what happened was that he tugged at the massive door handles with all his strength for about five minutes, before crying out for "A little help please?" The guy with the metal claws (Logan? Was that what Andrew had said his name was?) moved forward, pulled a key from Andrew's pocket, and turned it in the lock. "Oh," said a rather small Andrew, "Well, how was I supposed to know it was locked?"

"You're the one who locked it." Logan replied, in a disbelieving tone, before opening the doors. It was pitch-black inside, and Faith gained an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach from the sight of it. In her experience, completely dark and supposedly empty rooms usually contained evil creatures just waiting to tear your throat out. The slayer reached for the stake she had kept with her, ready to beat the living daylights out of any monster that tried to attack. With a deep breath, and one backward glance, she followed the rest of the group in.

Once inside, there were a few moments before that poncy bloke – the one she'd stabbed straight through the chest – said what had to be one of the most clichéd and stupidest lines she'd ever heard, "Let there be light." He flicked at a light switch and the dark shadows were cast back into the corners, while Faith and a few of the others struggled not to laugh at his comment; honestly, even B could do better than that.

Wow, this place was white. White everything, walls, sofas, curtains, all contrasted with the dark wooden floors. The place was so vast, barren and empty, it all looked so unfinished. There were no decorations, no extras, just bare essentials, and it kinda reminded Faith of a mental hospital. So much in fact, that she was just waiting for the little bald doctors in white jackets to turn up and try to force her into a straight jacket.

Well, on the bright side, it was a step up from the hotel back in San Fran. That had hardly been a palace. Yep, this place was not what she was used to.

A voice cut through Faith's jumbled thoughts. "I think it would be a good idea to get some rest." She didn't know who the voice belonged to, she didn't care, she was just so tired from the weird day she'd endured.

Faith spun round. "Where's my room?" Her voice rebounded off of the blank walls and echoed a few times.

Andrew replied. He seemed to be liking this new leader role, though Faith doubted it would last. "Um… it's like next to Logan's, so maybe, like, he could show you, maybe. I don't know." He shrugged his shoulders. Logan turned to look at Andrew, then cast his eyes over to Faith. He nodded acceptingly, and in a few moments, he was hiking up the staircase, Faith following him and looking at him carefully. He walked with a swagger, like a rock star or something, though at the same time he seemed secretive.

He didn't seem all that eager to talk, and to Faith, he seemed fairly hostile. Not that she minded too much, she wasn't exactly a chatterbox either. She left that to all the perky popular blonde slayers. Though, as she walked along behind him, Faith couldn't help her eyes from being dragged down to his hands. They were still in fists – kinda enforcing the hostile idea – but other than that, they looked fairly normal. There was nothing about them that simply screamed 'piss me off and deadly sharp daggers will come straight out of my skin'. Admittedly, she didn't know what the signs of something like that would be but…still, she was a Slayer. Wasn't she meant to be able to sense that kind of thing?

He stopped so suddenly that Faith almost skidded straight into him. Wordlessly, he opened a door to a room. The slayer wished he would say _something_, anything. It was just weird for him not to. And, even though she wasn't a thrilling conversationalist herself, he could at least make an effort. Faith barely glanced into the room before eyes dark eyes moved back to him and she said the first thing that came into her head, "So, what's with the claw things then?"

Logan raised his eyes and glared at her. "Goodnight" his gruff voice replied, and then he stalked off down the corridor and slammed the door to his room, not even looking back once.

"Fine," Faith retorted. "Wow, we're gonna have some fun." Then, for the first time since she'd been shown to it, Faith stared at her room. Well, it was like the rest of the snow palace. A bed, a table, chair, and a considerably small wardrobe. She dumped her stuff on the bed, and walked over to the window. Well, she might have had a nice view, but it was so black out there, she couldn't see anything. Faith let out a long- restrained sigh, and buckled on to the bed.

Faith came into consciousness wondering where she was. The bed that she felt beneath her was soft and comfy, not like at the hotel. In an instant, she remembered where she was and snapped open her eyes. Light was streaming into the bare room via one of the windows, making everything look so different. She hauled herself out of bed, and after regaining balance, bent down to pick up her discarded duffel bag. It wasn't at all heavy, but Faith was a light traveller, and God knows she'd done a lot of that in her lifetime.

She threw on some clothes – same stuff as last night, dark jeans and a red vest – before heading towards the door. As much as she hated admitting to it, even just to herself, she was pretty excited about this whole thing. It seemed like a fairly important thing to be part of, and there were white hats here that were either just as strong as her, or even stronger. As a slayer, she was used to being the most powerful weapon in the fight against evil. She liked the fact that there were others out there - others who could just as much good as she could. And, working together was better than working solo, right?

Her feet padded along the varnished floors, and Faith ran a tanned hand over the blank walls as she walked. She wanted to find out about the others; to find out what it was that allowed most of them to hold their own against the slayer. Not to mention an explanation as to why a few of them had looked like they were ready to go to a fancy dress party. As she approached the spiral staircase, she could hear faint voices drifting up to meet her.

Faith leant over the banister and observed the people below her. It looked like most of Andrew's gang had been up for a while, apart from that pirate guy. He still looked a bit drowsy, though Faith suspected that was due to the alcohol he had been glugging down last night. Well, time to make an entrance she thought, and with that, she set off down the stairs with an all too cheery "Good morning." As she arrived at the bottom, the only responses she got were from the drunken pirate and Andrew, who mumbled something to his sweater.

"Hello love," the pirate was looking frustratingly down at a bottle of headache pills and violently shaking them. Faith took the jar from his manky hands and opened it.

"There's a knack to it," she remarked, and handed it back to him. The face that was caked in dirt frowned back at her in a confused manner, then screwed up when a loud voice spoke.

"Good Morning." It sounded like someone was speaking over one of those intercom systems that they used to have back in Sunnydale High. Faith looked around for a moment to try and find the source of the voice, and eventually spied a white box in one of the high corners of the room. She rolled her eyes; an intercom? _That _was pretty lame.

"Speak bloody quieter!" the pirate exploded.

Andrew perked up. "Good morning Charlie," he said with a goofy smile on his face.

What followed next was possibly one of the most deathly, embarrassed silences that Faith had ever heard. All eyes turned to Andrew, who suddenly aware that the spotlight was on him, began to babble. "You know, like in Charlie's Angels, where Charlie speaks to them every morning through an intercom? Because you never actually like, see him, well, not in the TV series anyway, which was like, so much better than the film. I think the film was kinda a um, disappointment to fans, it didn't live up to my expectations, like when… I'll just shut up now," he said shrinking back into a chair.


	3. The First Mission

**The Order**

Disclaimer : We don't _actually_ own these characters; we're only playing with them! Honestly, we're not making any money from this…as you can probably tell.

A/N : My friend and I are on holiday for teh next few weeks, so sorry if this doesn't get updated for a while!

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Chapter 3

"…good morning Andrew." The voice said, sounding kinda bewildered. Faith didn't blame him; if scientists ever found out that Andrew existed, he'd be carted off for experiments. Honestly, how could one person be _that_ much of a freak? She shook her head and perched on the end of one of the cream sofas, next to the super-speeding teen. Faith had to admit that it was also weird for her to be living with seven random guys, and to only know two of their names. Still, she pushed that thought to the back of her mind and focused on what the disembodied voice had to say.

"Faith, I hope you're settling in alright." The brunette slayer nodded, trying not to question why this guy had to use an intercom; couldn't he just come and speak to them in person? Maybe he was some sort of demon, or a ghost, or maybe just a random voice. At that moment, she was going for the latter option. "I'm sure you'll find the mansion to your liking, and if you have any questions, I'm sure…Andrew will be willing to help." Faith was sure that she could detect a whole heap of sarcasm in his last second. A smile formed on her face, so she quickly moved her hand in front of it, so she didn't hurt Andrew's feelings.

The voice continued, "Anyway, I've got an assignment for you." Wow, Faith thought, this really was like being back at Sunny Dale High, homework and everything. " It's been reported that there's a new vamp nest on the other side of town. I want you to train for a while, then put your skills into practice by going over there and killing the vampires," the disembodied voice paused for a second, then carried on. "The nest is in the south of San Francisco, and it's an old abandoned leather factory. There shouldn't be too many vampires, so you should be fine, but don't get cocky and underestimate them. Vampires are strong, remember that." There was a brief silence, then "Good Afternoon Andrew."

"Bye Charlie," Andrew mumbled, sounding insignificant.

The group all sat there for a while, until the strange, alcoholic pirate came in with "Well, you heard what Almighty said, we need to do some training," he stopped to take a swig from a bottle. Where did all the drink come from?

Faith waited, with her arms across her chest, for some to do something. Training usually involved a whole lot of moving around but as far as she could see everyone was quite happy lounging around on the furniture. "Come on, it's time we showed her the practice room." The man who stood up flicked his long hair over his shoulder and grinned at her. Faith wasn't quite sure what it was about him that she didn't like – maybe it was the fact that he looked like a complete pansy, or maybe it was because he kept coming up with really strange comments – but he gave her the creeps.

"Guess Dorian's right, let's go." The teen beside her sighed and moved to walk down one of the corridors. Gradually, everyone began to follow him, some of them groaning and protesting quietly. Faith was the last to walk out, a curious look on her face. The cowboy with the whip was walking in front of her, and she couldn't help but wonder about it; everyone here was so strange.

The Super-Kid led them through the kitchen, down a corridor, and through some double-doors into a huge room. Wow. Faith had never seen so much equipment. There were punch bags, exercise machines of every kind, targets, and among other things, a massive cabinet full of weapons, from crossbows to machine guns. The cowboy caught her staring at the cupboard. "Feel free to use any of them," he commented.

The group split up, everyone going in different directions. Faith moved towards the nearest punch bag, and began taking out a lot of frustration on it. She was glad that they had this training room, she hated going into battles cold, and lets face it, if she didn't have this punch bag, someone else, possibly Andrew, would get the full wrath of her annoyance.

Faith stopped abruptly, suddenly realising how long she'd been pummelling the hell out this. She took a step back and caught her breath, and heard a voice behind her. "Mind practicing sword with me love? Haven't trained in a while." Faith spun around to see the pirate standing in front of her.

"Sure." The pirate tossed a sword to her, and stepped back in to a stance. She pounced forward, attempting to strike him, but the pirate blocking and spinning round. "So, who are you anyway?" Faith enquired.

His sword came into contact with hers. "I," he paused for effect. "…am Captain Jack Sparrow. Don't forget the Captain." Faith grinned and nodded, telling him her own name – he already knew it – before getting her head back into training. This was just what she needed; the week without a single fight, apart from that one last night, had left her restless. She could hardly wait to get to that vamp nest and get a good dusting.

After some hard training with Jack – despite all the drink he managed to get down, he was surprisingly fast on his feet – Faith moved over towards the weapons cabinet. There was a huge selection, probably even more than B had collected in her long years as a slayer. This was definitely something that gave the brunette a lift; she loved weapons. Give her anything with a sharp point and she'd be happy. She could hardly wait to try some of this stuff out. Her dark eyes glanced over to the tall teen next to her, who was also studying the arsenal in front of them.

"Hey…" The guy jumped a little, allowing Faith to chuckle slightly; it was weird to think that this kid was actually jumpy, considering the fact that there probably wasn't very much he had to be afraid of, what with his super-speedy blurring powers. Still, she was a slayer who had been in prison for murdering a guy, so maybe it was right to be a little bit on edge around her.

"Hi. I'm Clark – you're Faith, right?" He offered her a hand, and a wide smile that seemed to come naturally to him. She felt her own mouth curl into an automatic smile in return, but she didn't take the offered hand; handshake seemed a little too official for her liking. A quick nod of the head would do just fine.

The quick lapse of silence unsettled Faith, as most silences did these days; they felt far too empty, and he had enough emptiness inside her as it was. Best to fill it up with something, anything… "So, you can move super-fast, huh?" Ok, probably not the most intelligent conversation starter she'd ever had, but it was better than standing there stewing. So what if it wasn't world politics and a cure to cancer?

"Uh…yeah. That and I'm pretty strong and can see through stuff. Not really that much compared to what some of these guys can do." _Modest_ Faith thought; from what he'd said, he sounded to her like some kind of uber-slayer. This made her slightly uneasy; if he thought his powers were little compared to the others, what did the others' in this room possess? She wasn't entirely sure if she wanted to find out. "So, what about you?"

Simple as this question was, it was actually hard for Faith to answer; how to you explain what a Slayer was? And, she was guessing that Clark wouldn't already know. "Well…I'm a Slayer. Which means I'm generally good at kicking ass. Oh, and I can read minds."

Clark's face looked vaguely puzzled, and his eyebrows shot up. Faith felt a mischievous smile grow on her face, though he didn't look nearly as surprised as she'd hoped; most people would freak if they knew she could read their thoughts. "Really?"

"Nah, just thought I'd try and freak you out." She replied, before bringing her attention back to the weapons at hand. Her hand instinctively went for one of the crossbows – a real beauty, all silver and engraved and…generally fancy looking – because she figured it was best to go with what she knew best. When she looked back up, Clark had disappeared, probably off to train with someone a little more exciting that she was.

The slayer turned, crossbow still in her hands, to survey the room. Most people in there seemed busy; Andrew was even having a go at fighting with Logan, though by the looks of things, Logan was just allowing the kid to make an attempt at punching him. A soft smile crept to Faith's dark red lips. This place seemed really nice, and the people here were friendly enough, with the exception of the claw-wielding maniac. Still, she couldn't help but wonder if she was really cut out for this kind of thing; she worked better solo. When she played with others, people tended to get hurt. Take any example you want; her first Watcher, Buffy, Angel, even all those mini-potentials had ended up almost killed because of one of her many bad decisions. Maybe all these guys would be better off without her. After all, if Clark was anything to go by, they had more than enough brute strength as it was.

These thoughts were smothered and pushed to the back of her mind, as she raised the crossbow and aimed for a target on the far wall. It was easy enough, and she knew she could hit the centre without even trying. Crossbows were one thing that she good with; she'd had more than enough experience with this. This was one of the reasons why she was very shocked when her arrow was knocked straight off its course by some white sticky thing, and attached itself to the nearest wall. Once eyebrow raised when she glanced over to the geek – hadn't he been wearing glasses the night before? – and she pouted slightly. Definitely more than met the eye, she though as she considered him. "Hey, that was a perfect shot!" She complained, sounding more upset than she really was. She lowered the crossbow and made her way towards the fallen bolt, pausing to consider the – web? – that stuck it to the wall. "What the hell is this stuff?"

"Web." The geek answered, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Faith chuckled and shook her head as she yanked the arrow from the wall. "I'm Peter." Some old memory surfaced at the back of Faith's mind – webbing?

"Hey, you must be that Spiderman-guy, right?" She asked, with a smile. Some newspaper she'd seen on Giles' desk once had had a front cover about some guy in spandex that seemed to think he was a super-hero. The Watcher had got very excited about it for some reason, and had been all for sending someone over to find him.

"That'd be me." He sounded uncomfortable for some reason. Faith guessed that it must be just because he wasn't used to people knowing his 'secret identity'. The thought gained her a silent giggle. Honestly, who really wanted to dress up and fight crime, only to have to press hate you? Peter'd be better off doing the whole Slayer-secrecy thing, instead of flaunting his powers. The guy pointed to the crossbow that was still held loosely in her hands. "You're good with that."

"Y'know what they say, practice makes perfect. I've had way too much practice." Faith knew that her voice sounded more than a little smug, but she didn't really care. It was true – she was a Slayer, and as such she was good with weapons. Why hide your assets? She never had, and wouldn't stop now. Her eyes flicked back up to the man in front of her, "You want a go?" She asked, holding the crossbow out towards Peter.

He drew back a little, to Faith's disappointment. Surely someone who spent their free time swinging around sky-scrapers wouldn't be scared of using a simple crossbow? He mumbled something about not doing weapons, preferring to rely on himself instead, but Faith just shook her head. "Well, you should at least try it. You never know when one of these could come in handy."

"Alright, but I won't be any good." Faith rolled her eyes as she led him over to the far wall from the target. Could this guy have any _less_ faith in himself? If he was able to shoot his web-whatever accurately enough to drop a speeding arrow, he'd he good at this.

"Sure you will, you're learning from the best." Another of her proud personality traits shining through, but Faith didn't bother to dwell on it. Instead, she shoved the crossbow into Peter's hands, positioned his fingers properly and gave him simple instructions on how to use it – pulled a trigger wasn't _that_ difficult, was it?

The weapon jolted sin his hands as he shot, and as a result the bolt was slightly off target; it was up about three rings from the centre. Still, Faith thought as she clapped for him and gave him a few vague words of praise, it was much better than her first attempt with a crossbow; she'd hardly even been _near_ the board. She guessed that all of his web-flinging past-times had given him good aim. "Great! More practice and you'll be shooting like me in no time." She said, knowing it sounded arrogant to presume she was such an expert at it, but also knowing that she really was. After all, she hadn't been a slayer for over five years by just hiding away in prison that whole time.

By the time the whole training session was over, Faith and helped and been helped by pretty much everyone there. She'd learnt names – the cowboy guy with the kinky whip was actually an archaeologist called Indiana Jones – she'd learnt powers – Dorian was an immortal who couldn't be wounded without it healed up in a few moments – and learnt that Andrew annoyed pretty much everyone in the Order. The Order being her, Andrew, Peter, Clark, Dorian, Logan, Jack and Indiana. Logan had, in one of his more talkative moments – told her how Andrew had wanted to call the 'Justice League : The Next Generation.' But, fortunately, he was quickly over-ruled, so they'd named themselves 'The Order'…the Order of what, Faith wasn't quite sure.

All too soon, training was over and they were getting ready to go on her first assignment. Vamp nest; sounded fairly routine, but it would be good to get her slaying muscles back into action. As they were piling into the bus, Faith could tell a few of them were extremely nervous. Whenever Andrew spoke, his voice came out high and squeaky, but what could you really expect from him? Besides Andrew, Jack was quieter than normal, Dorian kept idling with his hair and Indiana had an apprehensive look on his face.

"We're here." Logan called back from the front, and Faith watched as the blood drained from Andrew's face. Clark threw the door open, and one by one they clamoured out, each checking their weapons. Faith had found herself fairly attached to the silver crossbow, but had opted for a stake instead; so much more practical. Besides, she'd only break the crossbow, so it was safer leaving it behind.

"Alright," Dorian's voice was as still as a rock, but Faith figured that he didn't exactly have much to be afraid of. After all, if a vampire tried to take a bite out of him, it'd just heal over. Then again, the others didn't have anything to be scared of either, if their descriptions of their abilities were anything to go by. "Let's go and show those vampires who's boss." She chuckled slightly; this guy had a never-ending supply of clichéd lines.

With that, Logan led them around to the front of the building, Jack motioning vividly behind him for everyone to remain silent. Man, this building was run-down. Its windows were boarded up, the bricks were chipped, and the paint was flaking. How could anyone stand to spend more than a minute here, even vamps? Weren't the undead supposed to have a heightened sense of smell?

However, Jack's plan to go in discreetly went out of the window when Logan kicked open the doors deafeningly and stormed inside, his loud footsteps echoing off the walls of the derelict warehouse. The group followed him cautiously, except Jack, who stood still in disbelief for a moment before muttering "Bloody idiot," under his breath and sauntering inside.

Faith followed, her tense hands holding the sharpened stake. She had an uneasy feeling, like someone or something was watching her every move, waiting to jump out at her, and in her experience, that was a bad feeling. Still, considering the fact that they'd just invaded, none-too-quietly, a vamp nest, that cautious feeling was to be expected. The building was deadly quiet, and since the electricity had long since been shut off, it was threateningly dark inside. Plenty of places for vamps to hide. Suddenly, she heard a girlie, high-pitched scream up ahead, and was aware of Andrew running to hide behind Clark.

This seemed to break the fragile stillness, as all around her Faith watched vampire, who had been previously lurking in the shadows, reveal themselves, smiling and baring their teeth. While the others seemed to take a moment of two to whirl themselves into action, she made a move towards the nearest, spinning in a perfected roundhouse, forcing him back against the wall in surprise. He still had a bewildered expression on his face as she dusted him – obviously not expecting a Slayer to be in the mist of the 'helpless humans' ho had wandered into the lair.

_It's so good to be back in action_ She thought, while she vigorously threw punches, kicks and complicated combos. There were so many that it was hard to keep a track of what she was doing, even harder to sense what the others were up to. But, as of yet, she hadn't heard and shouts for help, so she was taking this as a good thing. The slayer looked up and away from the fight as one of her attackers disintegrated into dust, only to see Andrew huddled in a corner and yelling to various people. "Watch out Jack!" and "He's behind you Logan!" She felt a sudden thread of anger run through her veins as she wondered why on earth Andrew had even bothered coming with them, if all he was going to was hide like a chicken. Why was he even in the Order? Andrew was practically no use at all.

Faith was stirred from her thoughts when she heard him yell, "Faith, turn around!" She reacted just quick enough to slam her elbow into the face on a bald, tough-looking vamp. His fangs had been bared, and disturbingly close to her neck. She let rip with a series of kicks and punches that Bruce Lee couldn't have even compared to, before slamming the sharp side of her stake into his body. Ok, maybe there was a good side to having Andrew around. God, how many of these guys were there? There weren't normally this many in one nest, she wondered as she raced forwards to stake a few of the vampires that Peter had handily stuck to the walls for her.

About an hour and a half later, the group were back at the house, sitting on the sofas. Andrew's voice was still babbling on relentlessly about the fight. "…and that was _so cool_ when you stuck them all to the walls, and the Faith came along like wa-pah and dusted them, and then when Logan beheaded, like, four vampires with his claws, that was _awesome_, and then when Dorian was all 'swish swish' with his sword, and I was like 'Look behind you!' and – " The most annoying voice in the world was cut off when Jack smothered his mouth was a grubby, tanned hand.

"Thank you so much," Logan said gratefully, causing a hidden smile to form on Faith's mouth. Good to know that there was someone else who just couldn't handle all that jabbering.

"My pleasure. I had to, before I became even more annoyed and did something I would later regret," Jack replied, before glancing towards the staircase with a large yawn. "Well, I don't know about you gentlemen but…" He trailed off and turned to Faith. "My apologies, _lady_ and gentlemen…but I'm going to bed. That fight has really tired me out." A few of the others rose too, nodding their heads in agreement. Faith stifled her own yawn; she was tired as well, and her body would be aching with the strain of worn-out muscles the next morning. But, she didn't feel like retiring for the night just yet. There was still too much adrenaline thumping through her thin body.

"Yeah, I'm pretty exhausted myself." Peter added, as five of their members began to wearily made their way upstairs. Faith's dark gaze swept around the room. The only people left were her, Logan and Andrew. Logan barely spoke, and Andrew spoke far too much. What a great conversation this was going to be. Andrew started up again, with what Faith feared was going to be another gushing discussion on how 'awesome' the fight had been, but in truth, he was just saying goodnight. He wandered up the stairs, leaving the room in complete silence.

_Alright_ Faith said to herself as she realised that any conversation starter's were going to be hers. She honestly just couldn't stand awkward silences – gave her too much time to think, and she had had enough 'thinking time' during her brief stint in jail. She opened her mouth, but couldn't think of anything to say so she shut it again, vaguely aware that she must resemble an over-grown goldfish. Stealing a glance at Logan, she saw that he was just sitting perfectly still, obviously not even trying to make an effort; he probably didn't even want to talk with her. Well, he was going to speak whether he wanted to or not.

"That was some fight," Faith suggested, hating the fact that she sounded a little like Andrew. And, on top of that, the only response she had ripped from Logan was a brief grunt. And then more silence. Her forehead creased in annoyance, what would it take to get a reaction out of this guy? "Nice hair…" She suggested, playful grin on her face and voice dripping with sarcasm.

He answered without a beat, barely even looking up. "Thanks. Nice trousers." Faith glanced down at the red leather that still clung to her legs; she liked them. Liked the looks she got from guys when she wore them. Still, at least she had him talking.

She was interrupted when Andrew came back downstairs, dressed in very fetching Wonder Woman pyjamas, sporting an empty mug. Faith looked at him questioningly – more wondering about the pyjama's that anything else – so he responded by saying. "My mom told me that a hot drink helps you sleep at night. What? No one ever tell you that? I find that Cocoa is the best; you two should try it."

As Andrew continued on his way to the kitchen, Faith stared at Logan, watching the suppressed smile grow on his face. "He's had a sheltered childhood. It can't be good for him." She paused, both to consider her words and to watch the hidden smile progress on Logan's face. Well, at least that was a reaction. Obviously, this was a good topic. Which meant, carry on rambling. "Still, guess that's better than a completely unsheltered one, with an alcoholic Mom and a Dad who ran off at the first sign of trouble…" Inside, Faith squirmed; had she _really_ just said that aloud? Way to say something awkward. Quickly, her brain told her, say something else! Blunder on past this! "Uh…what were your parents like?"

Okay, she could have said anything else; even asking what his favourite colour was would have been better than that. She barely knew the guy, and already she was asking about his parents? Jesus, her foot really did just _live_ in her mouth. She let out a sigh; wasn't as though she could just take it back, was it? Now she would just have to wait for his reply.

Logan's blunt voice broke through her despairing thoughts, "I don't remember." He lifted himself from the sofa opposite her and stormed off up the spiralling staircase. He didn't remember? What kind of an answer was that? How could anyone not even _remember_ their parents? Sure, most of the time she didn't even want to recall her poor excuse for a Mom, but she still did. She shook her head and slumped down on the pristine couch with a groan as his footsteps slowly faded away.

"Man, what did you say to him?" Andrew asked as he emerged from the kitchen, his bare feet padding on the hard floors. He quickly realised from the murderous look on Faith's face that he _really_ didn't want to make her any more mad, and he scurried away from the room. _Oh god, _Faith judged, _I really need__ to get some sleep. _Knowing her luck, there would be another fifty or so demons to kill tomorrow, or, even better, an apocalypse.


	4. Don't Shoot the Messenger

The next morning the group managed to avoid any embarrassment on Andrew's behalf; Charlie didn't give him enough time to make stupid comments. Which was probably a good thing, seeing as Faith _really_ wasn't in the mood for putting up with the little dork. Her head was still fuzzy with sleep, and she'd taken a crack around the ribs last night; still hurt like hell.

"Good morning. As I'm sure you're aware, you did very well last night." Faith grinned as she remembered the nest they'd been to; _that_ had been a brilliant fight. She hadn't had that much violence since that last apocalypse. Of course, her chest was really complaining about it, and last time she'd check her lower ribs were a dull purple colour. Still, super-healing powers and all, she should be fine soon enough. "I know there were more vampires than you expected, but, I have to say, you coped extremely well. My confidence in you in growing."

Faith was sprawled out on one of the white sofas, head rested on one of the arms and feet lying on the other arm. She smirked at Charlie's last comment; shed have been more than a little pissed off if he was proud of them after last night, though she might have been able to take most of those vamps herself. Sure, she probably would have ended up with a few extra bruises and possible a couple of broken bones, but she could have done it. Jack's voice cut through her thoughts, already slightly slurred at ten in the morning. "I'll drink to that, Charlie, mate."

The slayer glanced up from the stake she was chipping away at, a rare smile on her face. She shook her head as the disembodied voice spoke exactly what she'd been thinking, "I imagined you'd drink to anything, Jack." Of course, she was probably being a little overly cruel towards the pirate; he'd been amazing in that vamp nest. Sword technique to match hers, to match any slayer's.

"However, to get to the point, I have important news to tell you. People, or shall I say demons, are talking. Word on the street is that someone is raising an army. An army of demons." Faith slumped further down on the sofa, resuming her carving. She pursed her lips – why was it that every half-way to powerful demons had to raise an army, or end the world, or worship some hell-god? Couldn't they just be demons in their own right? _Jesus, I'm beginning to sound like a self-help guru._

"Anyway, who do you know on the street?" Andrew asked, and Faith couldn't help but pick up a slightly jealous tone in his voice. She glanced towards him, where he sat curled up in one of the chairs, hugging his legs. Seriously needy and dependant.

Faith placed down the stake she'd made, sharpened to a deadly point and a fearsome-looking weapon. She always had been good at making her own; helped to fill in the space between patrols. "More importantly, can they be trusted?" She heard Jack asking, a little too mysteriously and a tad too sarcastically.

"I _do_ know people besides The Order, you know." Charlie answered, sounding fairly angry. Faith could hardly blame him; these guys could be fairly annoying. And she was seriously out-numbered in the gender department. _Never thought there would be a day I'd say this, but I'm really beginning to miss B and the gang._ "In addition to what is being said, there have been large gatherings of demons at a warehouse I've been monitoring. I will try to find out what I can, and with keep you posted." The bodiless voice said goodbye, and while the others began to chat among themselves, Faith stood up to go and make herself some breakfast.

She opened the fridge door, surveying the contents. Wow, they _really_ needed to get some new food in – the fridge looked like it belonged to a college student. Eggs, eggs, green beans, eggs, beer or eggs. Great selection there. "Anyone want scrambled eggs?" She called out, standing up again and walking towards the seating area. After a few mumbled replies, she grinned, "'cause I don't know how to make them."

She smiled at Peter as he reluctantly got up and headed towards the kitchen, before leaning against the white-washed walls. As she gazed blankly at the rest of the group, it suddenly struck her how strange it all was, and she was the Queen of Strange Experiences. The men in front of her looked so normal, so mundane – with the exception of Jack and Indiana, who looked like they'd been dragged from a different decade – but, she knew for a fact that they, collectively, could shoot her lights out in a second.

Take Clark for instance – he looked like your standard teenage boy, kinda goofy, kinda needy, kinda hot – but he was even stronger than her. And being stronger than a slayer took some doing. But, everyone here really had something, a real 'appearances can be deceiving' gig. Even herself, really… load of vamps had picked on here, thinking that she was just a tasty bit of meat.

She was startled from her thoughts by a loud knock on the door. Visitors, great. Knocking visitors during daylight, even better. Hell, maybe it would be a fun salesman for her to intimidate then frighten off. She began to head towards the rich-looking doors, hoping that whoever was knocking was a woman; she could do with some female company.

As she reached out to drag the doors open, a hand shot out of nowhere and slammed it shut again. Faith turned her gaze towards Logan, looking extremely pissed off and ready to get straight to the violence. What was this guy's problem? She was really beginning to get pissed off by his attitude towards her; moody, unfriendly, way too much like her own personality for comfort. "_What_ is your game?" She asked, the words practically a hiss as she tried not to hit him.

"You're just going to open the door? It could be anything out there, waiting rip your head off." Nice visual there, but did he really think she couldn't handle something like that? She was the slayer – a slayer actually, but the point still stood. Quicker reflexes, super-strength, a fun sixth sense that told her where the creepy crawlies were…

Still, he kinda had a point. "You're right. If anyone's getting their heads ripped off, you'd open the door." Faith quickly stepped aside with a smile, as whoever was outside knocked again, sounding more urgent this time. When the door was finally opened, it turned out Logan was right; while no one tried to rip his head off, there was a weird looking demon on the doorstep.

Bright-purple, a few red horns on his head and navy blue eyes…this guy clashed in a big way. He smiled at first, showing a set of razor sharp teeth, but the smile faded as the rest of the Order formed behind Faith and Logan. The Slayer grinned – collectively, they must be on the right side of terrifying for a demon.

"I-I'm a messenger, here on behalf f my c-c-commander." Faith took her eyes off of the demon for a second, to take in the group behind her. It was reassuring to have a support team like this. Must have been like that for B, having the Scooby gang around to back her up all the time. She could definitely get used to it. "Rules of combat state that you cannot harm a messenger."

Faith raised an eyebrow; there were rules of combat? What were they and how come she'd never been told about them? Probably in that nifty little Slayer Handbook she'd heard about. Dorian's voice spoke from behind her, "Ah, but you forget, we're not playing by the rules."

There was the sound of metal scraping along metal as Logan took a menacing step towards the demon, obviously planning on causing some serious harm. Not that Faith was against injuring demons or anything, but she felt that they should probably try and get something out of this guy. Her arm shot out, way quicker than any normal human's should have, and stopped him in his tracks. "Wait…wait a minute. Let's hear the message first, then we can decide what to do with him. No point killing him now."

There was a nervous tension following her words, and for a few moments Faith was sure that they were going to go ahead with the death anyway. She would _not_ have been overly pleased with that arrangement, but could probably have coped. Lucky, they seemed to see her logic and calmed down. The demon glanced between them all, paying special attention to the sharp metal protruding from Logan's hands, before continuing in a quick stutter. "M-my commanders are aware that you know about our army, and they are looking forwards to tearing each and every one of your guts out."

Faith rolled her eyes; she hadn't just stopped the others from slicing and dicing him to hear clichéd threats like that. "Okay, enough with the fun fight talk. Give us your little message, or we'll see what torture methods we can come up with at such short notice." She grinned, showing her own row of white teeth – not quite as sharp and pointy as the demons, but the threatening nature was still there.

The demon obviously took the warning, because he promptly changed tactics, smiling at the one female in the group before continuing. His voice was slightly more confident this time, though Faith couldn't see any reason for him to have grown more sure of himself in the last few seconds. "My commander wants to meet you in two days time at the computer warehouse on 3rd. He says that if you don' come to him, he'll come to you…"

Faith shivered; what was it with creepy demons giving her the wiggins 24-7? This demon-army or whatever they were raising knew where they lived, and somehow knew that Charlie had found out about their lame-ass hell-raising, whereas they knew squat about this new threat to humanity. "Is that it?" Clark asked, sounding pretty calm considering the circumstances. "Is that the message?"

The demon chanced another seedy smile at the teenager, and Faith suddenly remembered who he reminded her of; Willy, that guy who used to own a demon bar in Sunnydale. She snickered silently, this creature had the exact same grovelling and pathetic manner as that Willy had had. Of course, these days reminiscing quickly led to wondering whether the man is question was still alive after the whole Sunnydale-turned-into-a-crater thing.

As soon as the demon nodded his head, Clark moved forwards, almost too quickly for Faith to see. One minutes, face-off between demons and…whatever the hell Clark was. Next, the kid had the ugly creep pinned up against the wall, both of them looking fairly dazed; Faith's guess was that this was the first time Clark had done any real intimidation. And, damn, the kid was good at it – even the Slayer was fairly impressed.

"Who's your Commander? Huh? What's his name?" Each question was punctuated by another slam against the wall, which, while being a nice violent touch, made a few slabs of plaster fall down. "Who sent you?" There was a sickening crunch as the demon's head collided with the wall behind it.

Faith figured she'd better step in before things got out of control; if the messenger was turned to demon paste before he got a word out, then this whole exercise would have been a bust. "Whoa, Clark…calm down." She tried to find the right words, but it was kind of hard – it was usually someone telling _her_ not to get out of hand, instead of the other way around.

"_Not_ until he tells us who his commander is!" Clark was yelling by now, and Faith had to wonder whether she'd be able to stop him if she tried; the boy was a whole lot stronger than her, as much as she hated to admit it. He could probably swat her down – swat most of them down, to tell the truth - in an instant. That thought made her slightly uneasy, but now wasn't really the time to dwell on it.

"Look, kid, if I tell you…he'll know….he always knows….he'll find out, he'll kill me…." _Well, least we now have a gender for 'the Commander'_ Faith thought, trying to keep on the bright side. And, at least Clark had backed off slightly now, which was good, seeing as otherwise they'd have demon blood on the white wall – be a bitch to remove.

"Well…how about, you tell us his name, we let you go, we kill him…simple as that." Jack offered, his voice effortlessly cheery. Faith smiled; she could hardly believe he was trying to _reason_ with a demon. Didn't make sense to her; demons weren't even human. Only thing they were good for was being a slightly more active punch-bag.

Interested to see the creature's reaction, Faith focused all her attention on it. "Well…when you put it like that…his name's - " A choked mumble escaped from the demon's mouth, and she took an involuntary step back; if this guy was going to vomit, it wasn't going to be around her. "M…my eyes? What's wrong with the my eyes?" He asked, raising his hands – six fingers, Faith noted – to cover his perfectly normal, if slightly demonic, eyes.

"Oh my god! What have you people done to me?" The demon asked in a high-pitched wail. Faith glanced around at the others; she sure as hell hadn't gone near him, none of them had apart from Clark. And Clark had steered clear of the guy's eyes.

When it's mottled purple hands lowered again, Faith could see why it was freaking out. Blood ran from it's eyes like an extremely creepy river. She'd seen a lot of sick things in her time as a slayer – whole load of sick things before that as well – but bleeding from the eyes? That was a new one, as far as she could remember; eventually, all the blood and gore seemed to mesh into one horrifying picture.

In a couple of seconds, the blood began to really pour. Nose, mouth ears…probably some less pleasant exits from the body that Faith didn't want to think of. Despite herself, she actually felt sorry for the guy; he was freaking out, cussing and crying and shouting to the heavens for help. But, there wasn't really a lot anyone could do, so they had to stand by pretty much helplessly while the demon dropped to his knees, crawling along the garden path before finally giving up and dissolving into a green ooze.


	5. Of Challenges and Telepathic Annoyances

The atmosphere in the house dropped dramatically after that, and the pressure began to build up heavily against Faith's head. It was killing her. It had been a couple of hours since they'd enjoyed a visit from 'the Messenger', and no one had a clue what to do. Andrew was sulking in his room, obviously offended by having a demon threatening everyone in their 'lair', whereas most of the others were simply wandering around the place aimlessly.

Faith was out in the gardens, trying to gather her thoughts. It was obvious that they had a big fight coming up, and that worried her. Even though they were a ridiculously strong army in their own right, there were only eight of them. If this demon army was anywhere near as huge as she imagined it would be, they'd just be swamped. She wondered if it would maybe be worth considering calling in a few other slayers.

She sat down on the perfectly mowed lawn, leaning back against a small wall that surrounded one of the many flowerbeds. A glance up at the sky told her that the sun was still shining happily, which seemed crazy. After what had just happened to that demon back there, she wanted it to be dark and dismal. Would match her mood, and the weather really should simply bucket down whenever she felt this angry. Which, recently, had been a hell of a lot.

She could hardly believe that she'd only been with the Order a couple of days. Felt like a whole lifetime. Her whole life felt like it had been hundreds of years too long, because each singular event seemed like it had been acted out by a different person. It _couldn't_ have been her that stood by and watched as her watcher was tortured and killed, it wasn't her that had ran off without warning to Sunnydale, hoping to find refuge in a blonde little slayer called Buffy. It hadn't been her that had felt so jealous of B and her friends, for having everything that she didn't. The hand that had killed the deputy mayor wasn't hers, and her mind had belonged to another when she'd turned towards the Mayor for help.

The sun's rays were prickly on her skin, and Faith's hands had curled themselves into loose fists. That whole experience back there had been…intense, to say the least. Everyone was shaken up, and she was doing her best to stay together. She was a Slayer, one of the Chosen hundred or so that there were in the world. More importantly, she'd been dealing with this kind of thing for _years_. Felt like it was kind of her duty to keep herself together throughout everything. Because, if she didn't, who would?

Two days time…two days to get themselves together and ready to, presumably, take on an army. The slayer groaned, and thrust her elbow into the wall behind her with the strength she had been blessed with. Some of the skin was scraped off roughly, but she barely felt the blood that began to leak out. It didn't matter, it was just a cut that would have healed over by the time they went out to face almost certain death.

She was perilously close to having a tantrum, even though she knew that this was her purpose, this was what she had been born to do; to fight back demons, and to stop the dark from taking over the world. Didn't make actually doing it any easier, but it helped her to feel better about the up-coming challenge that they were going to face. She was a Slayer, the latest in a line of skilled warriors. And, backing her up and fighting by her side would be some of the most amazing people she'd ever met.

She stood up, collecting her thoughts and trying to decide on the best course of action. The wound on her elbow was beginning to sting, and a slow line of rose-red blood had begun to twirl its way around and down her arm. It would probably be best to patch it up – wouldn't really do for her to get it infected. Reluctantly, she made her way towards the kitchen, where the First Aid kit was stashed under the sink.

The curious – and worried – looks that the other's handed Faith as she wandered past them were duly ignored. It wasn't any of their business why her arm was bleeding, and how it had come to happen. If any of them so much as looked like they were going to ask her, she'd tell them where to get off; to tell them to mind their own business, and leave her to mind hers.

Within a couple of minutes, a bandage had been wrapped tightly around the wound. She wasn't an expert in any manner, so it was hardly professional but…it would do. She sighed, now that she no longer had anything to occupy her mind with. She needed something, anything, to keep her thoughts away from a subject that terrified her.

Without a word, she began to head towards the training room, hoping to be able to beat the thoughts out of her head. It wouldn't do any good to dwell too much on it, would it? She was a Slayer – for her, it was best to act out on impulse instead of agonising over every little detail. Which meant, no plans, no counting, no organising…just a whole load of violence.

That punch-bag was in for one hell of a beating.

* * *

Two days passed far too quickly. The hours ran off quicker than Faith knew how to fill them, and before she knew she had to be ready to face down a challenge. And, despite all of her earlier hopes of becoming pure energy, of not planning ahead, of not paying any attention to the fear that coursed through he body, Faith was scared. Not that she'd ever give _that_ little gem of knowledge to anyone, but she was having serious doubts.

Of course, this really wasn't the time to be having them – a few feet away from entering the Warehouse they'd been ordered to go to. But, as confident as she was in the group's collective abilities, there was no way they were taking on an army. A group? Sure. A gang? Definitely. An apocalypse? Bring it on…a huge mega-watt army of demons? No way.

The Order was strong, that much Faith was sure of. But, they weren't _that_ strong. To defeat the last army she'd faced, a bunch of uber-ugly super-vamps, it had taken a big bunch of newly activated Slayers, as well as a neat little amulet courtesy of Spike. This time, she had a few oddly matched guys with powers. And, though the powers were definitely impressive, there was no way that she could see a way to actually win the upcoming fight. The odds were just stacked crazily against them.

It was too dangerous for Andrew to come along, although he'd protested violently – well, annoyingly – about that fact. In the end, with a glint in their eyes, they'd pushed him onto one of the dining chairs, taped up his mouth to stop him from yelling to Charlie, and tied him tightly to the arms of the chair. Of course, even like that he'd attempted to follow them, with the chair stuck to his backside, his mouth mumbling muffled insults, and looking like an over-grown turtle. After that, they'd tied his legs up as well and abandoned him.

Her legs were still complaining, and trying to force her to turn around, when they paused for a moment outside. Electricity seemed to crackle between the seven people lined up outside, and in that instant Faith knew she wasn't giving up on this. Why should she? Beside her stood a farm-boy from Kansas who could probably kill demons with one swipe of his hands, a mutant with some weird metal-claw-like-things, an immortal, a guy with a kinky whip…they could handle this, right?

She smirked, knowing that it was Buffy Summers invading her head and giving her pep talks, but she didn't really care. Although the older Slayer was definitely a little long-winded for her, B had somehow managed to infiltrate her thoughts, whispering long speeches whenever she felt unsure. And, at that second, she was glad to have some encouragement. Hell, she needed _some_ support.

"Here goes…" She mumbled, taking the lead, seeing as no one else seemed willing to, and moving towards the door. No one else spoke, but she could feel them behind her, ready to follow. Her heart had decided to do its impression of a humming bird, and Faith didn't know if she'd ever been this nervous. Still, it didn't show on her face, nothing did.

She lifted her foot, sending a snap-kick at the door that sent it flying. The sound of breaking hinges was great, a sound she loved. The sound of shocked breaths from within the warehouse was even better. Obviously, whoever was in there was just as nervous about this was she was, and that was good. Best to make a powerful impression, right?

Her boots – black, of course, to match the rest of her outfit – made a loud clatter as she strode into the area, oozing confidence. She just wished it was a confidence that she could feel. Still, as long as these demons thought she wasn't scared of them, she was willing to act as cocky as she needed to.

Of course, the sight inside the Warehouse would be enough to send any normal slayer running for the hills, but Faith'd proved more than once that she wasn't exactly on the right side of sane. But, even so, staring out at a mass of fairly vicious looking demons, Faith's stomach did a back flip.

_You see? They're nothing…_ A voice sounded loud in her head, cold and uncaring. Faith glared around the area in front of her, not turning as she felt the rest of the Order fan out behind her. _Worse than nothing, because they think they're something._ It hurt her head, sharp pain shooting right down the centre of her brain, just to listen to that voice. It was cold, cruel, evil. Shivers whispered up and down her supine, and her brain felt violated.

"Look, are we actually going to fight, or are you just going to hiss in my mind all night?" Faith asked, wanting the voice to shut up so that they could get back to the violence; violence she was good at. Handling telepathy, not so skilled at. If these demons would just _attack_, instead of standing there, staring at them blankly. Of course, maybe the safer option would be to quietly slip out the door, but Faith never had been one for the hazardless route. Risk-a-minute was more her style.

There was a beat, one that stretched out over the silence, and Faith could feel her blood pounding in her ears. There was so much tension clammed into the warehouse, she felt like she was just breathing it in. It clogged her lungs and constricted her chest, but she hardly noticed; it was hard to breathe in the stress-filled second. Hard to even _think_ about breathing, when so much obviously lay with what happened next, with whatever the telepathic voice was thinking.

Luckily, things soon began to spring into action. Whether or not being swarmed by countless demons was a good sort of action, Faith couldn't tell. But, she could deal with demons – dealt with them nightly – and it was definitely better, for her, to be fighting than listening to disembodied voices. Demons…demons she could

With a grunt, she slammed her fist into the face of the first demon that came within her reach. Her fist hurt afterwards, but it didn't matter; pain was nothing when she was fighting, nothing but a mild annoyance and a mere distraction. Emotions, senses, feelings…all were a blur as she lost herself in the violence, concentrated on staying alive and nothing else. The sword she'd brought with her got lost somewhere in the fight, after helping her disconnect a few heads from a few necks, so she had to rely on her body, on the muscles and reflexes she'd built up over all her years as a slayer.

Hit, kick, punch, block, duck…moves that she could perform in her sleep. She would never be Buffy Summers – the infamous blonde was, as people liked to remind her, the 'original, no substitutes slayer' – but Faith could fight like an animal. She could let herself go and simply react; something that precious Buffy had never been able to do. Not that anyone cared, or even notice. To them, Buffy was everything a Slayer should be, and nothing Faith did could ever match up to her. Constantly living in someone's shadow grated on your nerves after a few years.

Backhand to the face, followed immediately by a short punch. The demon wouldn't have even known what was happening until there was blood running out of his nose, and Faith had spun around to deal with another demon. There were so many, they were crowding her and she couldn't see what was happening, on the rare occasions that she remembered she wasn't alone in this fight and took a quick check around her.

Faith wasn't the tallest of people in the world, and with bloody-thirsty demons at every side, she just had to hope that the others could handle themselves. They _had _to be able to stand up for themselves, because she couldn't be around to save them. And, as a slayer, she was used to saving people. Used to being the dark stranger that ripped them from the jaws of death, told them to run, told them to leave it to her. She was kinda a super-hero, except without the spandex.

She was still lost in thought and in the fight when her feet were pulled from under her, and her body was sent crashing to the ground. An agonised moan escaped her lips, as the demons got their act together and attacked in a group, kicking and clawing and ripping and biting and there was so much pain she couldn't think, but she needed to get up and keep on fighting, she couldn't relaxed, couldn't stop, couldn't…

**

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** A/N : Sorry about the delay...I forgot to write the chapter... 


	6. Awakening

**The Order – Chapter 6**

Faith normally loved to wake up. She loved to see the bright morning sunlight filter through the windows in the morning. She adored the way that morning light seemed to pick out every tiny dust spec that was floating in the air, and she loved the strange silhouettes it cast on the walls. However, this morning, she just didn't appreciate the new day one little bit. The bright light hurt her eyes and made her squint, and the additional warmth shining down on her face was only adding to the humid feeling that surrounded her.

Faith rolled over onto her back, ignoring the rush of pain this caused her, and, gazing up at the pristine white ceiling, assessed how she was feeling. Her head was spinning like a constant headrush, and she could hear a strange hissing sound inside her ears that seemed to magnify the more she listened. Her back ached – it felt like a dozen gnomes had been tap-dancing along her spine – and, as her eyes scanned down her bruised body, she saw that she was extremely pale. Hell, her skin almost matched the colour of the ceiling. To top it all off, an overwhelming feeling of _weakness_ shook her, not to mention the high-fever and the endless feeling that she was about to spew all over the place.

Well, better this than dead, and it had been a narrow escape. As Faith slowly swung her feet over the side of the bed, she tried to remember what had happened in that warehouse. How was she still standing here? Alright, sitting here. She placed one unsteady foot on the floor, and gently used down on it, cautiously testing if it could hold her weight. Her hands gripped the side of the bed and hoisted her body up. Her legs buckled, but she managed to catch herself in time, so she didn't slam to the ground. She determinedly pushed herself upright, wondering what on earth was wrong with her.

She hobbled along the narrow corridor, her eyes still blurry with sleep. Each step was agony, and her muscles protested at the strain they were put under. She passed open doors and empty rooms, before coming to a halt at the waist-high wall that over-looked the living area. She couldn't remember _ever_ being this weak. She'd been tired before, of course. I mean, after fighting the hell-mouth or apocalypse, who wouldn't be? But, this was different. Her energy was completely sapped, and her mind kept wandering off to far off places. She desperately tried to remember the battle, but the same flashbacks played over and over in her head. She could recall Andrew tied tightly to a chair, her own foot kicking the Warehouse door off its hinges, and the masses of demons that awaited inside. Shivers chilled Faith's now-delicate body as she remembered the cool, evil voice inside her head, raiding her thoughts. Who was that, intruding into her mind? Had she fought off some big, telepathic evil? She didn't think so; she could remember the monsters, that's for certain.

She shook the blurred thoughts from her head and began to slowly make her way down the steps, hoping to be able to find some answers about the previous night.

"Last night?" Jack's sceptical voice echoed through the house, only increasing Faith's headache and making a vein on her forehead pump. Had he never heard of hushed tones? Her head felt like she was dealing with the world's worst hang-over; she didn't need the pirate yelling at the top of his lungs. "Darling, you weren't awake last night. You've been upstairs dozing for three days, while we've been down here forming a plan to defeat an army."

He stopped to take a large drink from the bottle in his hand, and Faith relished in the silence. She leaned further back on the sofa she was sitting on, and wondered whether the information she wanted was worth this torture. "Not that I blame you, love, a few of us were wounded, but you came off worse." He placed a dirt-caked hand on her shoulder – did he _never_ wash? – but she shook it off immediately.

"Yeah, whatever, answer my question." Faith's tiredness was getting the better of her – had she really just woken up? It seemed like it had been hours – and though she tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice, she was fighting a loosing battle. When she was in this mood, she really didn't want to have to be wrestling someone for a simple answer. "What the hell happened? Last thing I remember is…" She paused, unsure if telling the next part of her cheery little tale would be a mistake. Was it really a good idea to tell them about the voice she'd heard? She looked around at the beaten bodies of her allies; they were all pretty shook up. Last thing they needed to worry about was some insane voice in her head. "Last thing I remember is kicking some ass, tripping up, then I'm drawing a blank. If you'd fill in those blanks, I'd appreciate it."

The pirate smiled, not even taken back by her outburst. A wave of his breath moved over her, and she held in the temptation to run outside to get a breath of fresh air. "A lot of stuff's been happening since you last saw us, love."

"Urghh!" Faith let out a long-suppressed moan of anger, standing her foot on the floor. Was it physically impossible for Jack to _ever_ give her a straight answer? Or, for that matter, for anyone to give her some real information? She was wondering whether a punch in the face might force some proper answers out of Jack, when Logan spoke out behind her.

"I couldn't see you during the fight, but Clark found you unconscious. We tried to drag you to safety and carry on without you, but…there were just too many. We had to get out of there." Faith swung her dark head towards Logan as he spoke, and continued listening. Finally, someone who was going to tell her what had happened. "When we got back here, we put you in your room and left you to yourself. That was roughly three days ago." He paused yet again, pointedly not meeting Faith's eyes. "We've been trying to think of a plan, but we just…can't. There's too many."

Faith was shaken by the last sentence. Too many? Logan didn't talk like that, did he? Logan was mean, cold, emotionless. The uncertainty in his voice was new to her, and she didn't like it one bit. If this was how he was feeling, how were the others reacting to this? Clark and Peter in particular; they seemed like the sort to lapse into despair.

"Don't…" For the second time in a few days, Faith considered letting Buffy completely take over and start preaching about how there was a 'long, hard fight ahead', but how they'd win. But, once again, she decided that that would be an extremely bad idea. She was already way too like B for her own liking. Besides, although the old Scoobie Gang's spirits had always been lifted by Buffy's droning, Faith had only been annoyed by the long-winded speeches. They always seemed to revolve around the fact that Buffy was the Chosen One. _One_, singular.

Faith took in a breath through gritted teeth, and knew that she had to change the subject if she was going to stay sane. Even just thinking about Buffy was enough to get her back up. "Yeah, well, if I was just knocked out, how come I'm like this? I'm freaking _weak_. I'm never weak." She raised her eyebrows expectantly, but wasn't sure whether or not they'd have an answer to give her.

There was silence in the room for a few seconds, before Andrew squeaked nervously. "You were kinda bitten." Faith's face remained blank for a few moments, as she felt her heart stop. The first thought that came into faith's head were of vampires, and this shook her. But she couldn't have been bitten by a vamp, she'd been a slayer for years and never been caught out. Why would it happen now, when she was more experienced than ever at kicking undead ass?

"Bitten by what?" Faith asked, with a hint of hope in her voice. She could feel bugs crawling up her skin, the dread climbing in her throat…she silently prayed that the word 'spiders', or 'snake', or even 'demon' was the answer. She could have handled anything but what followed.

"A vampire." This seemed to budge the stone that had been holding it all her frustration and anger. She screwed up her face, her features distorted, trying to find a way to cope with the mass of emotions that were taking over her head. There was a sickness inside of her, eating away at her insides. Faith couldn't count the nights she woken up in a sweat from nightmares of being bitten by a vampire. It had to be every slayer's worst nightmare, right?

Millions of thoughts were buzzing like crazy in her head, and, no matter how she tried to force them back, make them shut up, they wouldn't listen. They just kept on humming happily away, pointing out that a true slayer, a capable slayer, would have been able to protect herself. Wouldn't have gotten caught out.

Faith screamed in angst, leaping up from the sofa before kicking out at the nearest piece of furniture. She ignored that stab of pain this caused her, knowing that she'd feel better once she'd let it out; bottling up emotions wasn't good. It led to angst and tears and a whole world of pain. Definitely better to get it all out in the open, and destroy any ugly looking piece of furniture she could find.

Once she was finished with her tantrum, she could _feel_ the silence in the room. As turned around to face them, after kicking the sofa she'd been lying on over to the wall, she met eyes that were brimming with shock. Except for Logan, Logan was…different. He didn't look as though he wanted to turn and run for the hills before she turned on him, but he didn't look sympathetic either. Instead, she saw the look of someone who was disappointed in her way of dealing with this.

She collected herself, taking a deep breath and realising that she completely agreed with Logan; that had been a really idiotic way of dealing. Having a tantrum was what three year olds did. That scream, was supposed to release all of the tension that had built up over the past few days, but all it did was remind Faith of how useless the situation was. She could scream, she could cry, she could destroy sofas, but it wasn't going to make a difference to what was going on around her. She felt helpless, and the only way that she could try and tackle this problem was in a Buffy-esque way; reasonably and calmly, doing the best for everyone. That wasn't really Faith's style. She was more a hit-the-road-when-thing-get-tough kinda girl, but, when she thought about it, that never did her any good. She shrugged her shoulder, then asked in the mildest voice she could manage. "Did I drink?" She paused, "I mean, did they turn me?"

Clark was the first person to recover from her outburst, and as such was the person to answer her question and give her some relief. "No, they just…bit." Faith let out a breath; she wouldn't have been able to survive if she'd been turned. How would she have known, anyway? It wasn't like you just woke up one morning and said 'hey, I'm a vampire. Let's go slaughter some innocents.' "That was before Logan came and rescued you." Clark added, turning towards Logan, who promptly looked at the ground. It was clear that he didn't want the attention focused on him.

"Oh, modest now, are we?" Faith turned her head to look at the source of the voice, a well-groomed Dorian. The voice seemed to be dripping with disdain, which was mirrored by the iciness in his glare. What did he mean by that? Faith raised her eyebrows at Dorian, inviting him to explain what the hell he was on about. Had something happened while she'd been out cold? By the way that Logan and Dorian were scowling daggers at each other, Faith was going to say that something had _really_ happened.

Mind you, Logan wasn't exactly the easiest person to make friendly with. He had a presence around him the tended to cut off any conversation before it had even start. But, still, Logan looked ready to tackle Dorian to the ground, and that wasn't normal, even for someone as aggressive a Logan. "What are you talking about?" Faith's voice questioned.

"Oh, nothing." Dorian replied passively, with just the hint of a sneer. "Just Logan's sheer arrogance." He spat this last sentence, as if he was taunting Logan with it, which even Faith could see was not a wise thing to do. Logan, his face contorted with rage, bounding forwards and grabbed Dorian by the throat, slamming him hard against the stone pillar that towers above them. He raised his arm and punched Dorian square in the face; the loud thwack was two-fold, the first noise when Logan's fist collided with Dorian's face, the second when Dorian's head collided with the cool stone.

Logan pulled his fist back as Dorian's skin healed itself in a cluster of black smoke, and proceeded to land another blow, then another, than another, before his hand was caught mid-flight by Indiana, who, with great effort, wretched Logan away from Dorian. A though crossed Faith's mind; probably, the only reason that Indy had managed to pull them apart was because Logan hadn't been expecting it. She knew from experience that Logan had a strong grip, strong enough to force Faith – a slayer – against the tree in the graveyard.

"Look," Indy panted; pulling the two apart had clearly token then energy from him. "We should all take some time out and cool off. We've had a rough time these past few weeks; we just need to relax." Faith doubted that there would be much time for relaxing. There never was, at least, not in her experience. She reflected on her life since she was a fresh-faced potential, and couldn't remember ever getting the chance to 'cool off'. It was always school – if she wasn't suspended at that time – training, patrol in a vicious circle, never the chance to rest and let her guard down. Man, those pre-slayer years had been touch. Every other girl's biggest worry had been getting a date for the prom, or decided what to wear to school, while hers had been trying to figure out a way to avert the apocalypse. She'd wanted to quit this gig so much and get on with her life, and it had got to the stage where she didn't care if her decision to give up affected anyone. She'd just longed to be an average teenager. Well, okay, even if it was an average teenager with an alcoholic mom and some pervy step-dad's to look out for, that would still have been better than getting up every morning, putting on her face then going off to fight the forces of darkness.

Still, Faith reasoned, in the end it had sorta paid off. She couldn't imagine doing anything else, or being able to live the simple life without getting bored. As she awoke from her deep thoughts, she realised that everyone else had left, going some place or another, and leaving her in isolation. Good, she wouldn't have to deal with their concern, or answer their questions. Faith liked to be alone. She flopped down onto the sofa she'd kicked, and let out a long, weighty sigh.


	7. Squished Toast

She could feel the wound in her neck. Earlier, when she'd first woken up, all the pain had melded into one giant blob. Once she was given the chance to focus, she could feel the puncture wound on her neck, a pounding pain that seemed to pulsate, like an alien parasite that had taken up refuge in her body. Was that being too dramatic? No, probably not, though she wouldn't go spewing her thoughts all over the others. 

After half an hour of lying completely still on the sofa, Faith reluctantly sat up. Her stomach was complaining violently - as it had every right to, if she hadn't eaten since she'd been knocked out - and she craved food. Didn't matter what, she wasn't exactly fussy, but she needed something. Once she'd had her fair share of calories, she'd be able to put her mind back on track. What track it was that she wanted her mind on was a mystery, but at least she'd be able to concentrate once she'd had some food.

Truth was, she didn't know what to think anymore. Not that she had ever shown any examples of extremely level-headedness in her past - she'd end up in prison because of her lack of thinking - but she'd always had her basic opinions. She'd always know what she wanted to think, how she wanted to act, how she wanted to speak. But, at this moment, she was completely lost, and it scared her.

Life used to be so simple for her. Eat, sleep, train, slay. Those had been the words she'd lived by. Sure, she'd managed to fit a few night clubs and dead-beat boyfriends in around her hour key-words, but things had been pretty basic for her. And she'd liked it simple, most of the time. Liked not having to answer to anyone, liked being in charge of the power she possessed, liked the warm buzz she got when she staked a vampire and saw the dust float away.

Of course, all the simplicity faded away when she'd accidentally staked the deputy mayor. Or was it before that? When she'd first met B, the one person she'd never been able to lie up to? When her watcher had been murdered by Kakistos? When she became the slayer in the first place? Faith didn't know, but at some point her life had gotten way too complicated, and she'd ended up here.

Here was a mansion, outside of sunny San Francisco, that was currently home to the Order. Faith still couldn't remember why, exactly, she'd agreed to join Andrew' little gang of freaks. It made no sense whatsoever; it was so unlike her, it was laughable. She wasn't the sort who played well with others, after all. And yet, here she was, living with and fighting alongside her own personal gang of Scoobies. But, her 'friends' were basically strangers, weren't they? She didn't know anything about them. Didn't know the names of Clark's parents, didn't know where Peter went to school, didn't know why the hell Jack dressed like a pirate and she didn't know why any of them had agreed to this in the first place.

Let's be honest, who in their right mind wakes up one morning and just decides to join an evil-fighting organisation? Didn't Clark have a school to attend? Didn't peter have a city to save? Didn't Logan have...that X-men group to annoy? Her point was; they all had commitments elsewhere. Why on God's earth were they all here, planning on taking on a demonic army, instead of dealing with their responsibilities?

As much as Faith hated to admit it, she did have a bunch of responsibilities to take care of. Right up at the top of the list was her slaying, which she had been really neglecting recently. Sure, with all the legions of newly-activated slayers, itching for a fight, she wasn't strictly need, but the newbie slayers were just another responsibility she had to think about. Someone experienced needed to show them the ropes, and seeing as Buffy was away in Rome, she was pretty much the only person available for the job.

Faith bit into a piece of heavily buttered toast as she sat down at the kitchen table. Really, what was she doing here? There was so much more important stuff to take care of elsewhere. The others could stay and fight armies, if they wanted, but she had an elsewhere to be. People to do, demons to slay; Jesus, when was she going to get tired of saying that? It was the new phrase that was always on her lips. Something 'cool' to say when her mind went blank. 'Want, have, take,', 'five by five'...seemed like she always had to have a meaningless jumble of words to hand. If she just picked a few words completely at random, and ran them together, she doubted if anyone would notice that she wasn't making sense.

A hand reached out of nowhere, heading towards her face, her body, her neck. She wrapped her own hand around the wrist, and yanked as hard as she could, pulling the person over her shoulder and onto the table. Instinct, she guessed; slayer within her wanted to stop flat anyone who managed to sneak up on her right now. Even if that person was one of the good guys. Even if that person was in the Order. Even if that person was Logan. Hey, 'least you didn't stake him, right? That's an improvement.

"Easy, Princess, it's just me." Logan didn't even seem scared, despite the fact that she'd just came within two inches of kicking the shit out of him. Even with healing powers like Logan's, being knocked around by a slayer was going to hurt. The fact that he was just lying there just pissed Faith off further. He could have at least bothered to show some emotion - any emotion, she didn't care which one - instead of just gazing up at her with eyes she could begin to read. He was so damn infuriating, Faith wasn't sure whether she wanted to punch his lights out or take off out of the house.

In the end, after a few moments when neither of them moved or spoke, Faith took a step backwards, wondering how she was going to explain this. After all, when you were feeling fine you didn't go around pinning random people, did you? As such, Logan was going to want to know what was going on. And Faith really didn't know, so how was she supposed to explain it to him?

She turned away from him, trying to gather her thoughts and work out how she would explain. If she was going to explain; if he didn't ask, she wasn't going to offer up any information. Faith wasn't the care-and-share type. The less people you let in, the less you got hurt. She really didn't need to let herself get hurt anymore. So, if Logan didn't ask specifically for answer, she wasn't going to hive him any.

It took Logan a few drawn-out moments to say anything, and Faith wished she knew what he was thinking. How could his face be so blank? There wasn't even a hint of his thoughts shown on his face, which was unnerving. Especially in someone like Logan; Faith didn't think that he was the type of guy who would bottle up his feelings.

"You want to talk about it?" There! Finally, something. Sure, not much, but there were words, and words were usually good. Better than silence anyway. Silence made her think, made her drag up unpleasant thoughts. Faith always tried to fill in silences. But now? Logan's question hinted that he wasn't her to talk about 'it' a- about how she'd been caught out, about how a vampire had tasted her blood, about the ugly, pulsating puncture she could feel on her neck - but she didn't think she could. He wouldn't understand. No one but a slayer would.

It wasn't the first time she'd been bitten. There was that one time, with Angelus...but that had been different. It had been part of Wesley's plan, and she'd been ready for it. This time, she hadn't been expecting fangs on her neck. She'd been prepared for the cuts, the bruises, the dull ache in her muscles, and she'd known that it would be a difficult fight. Getting drained by some nameless vampire? That I she hadn't been ready for.

Logan seemed to have given up on getting an answer, turning around and beginning to clear up the broken plate and mashed toast from the table - apparent, throwing a person on top of china and toast wasn't a good idea. Faith took a few steps around the table, and sat down in the chair facing him. She wanted to talked, needed to spill out some of her thoughts before she went completely insane, but what could she say? She'd never talked to anyone but Angel before, and with Angel, things had been different. He was right where she was; trying to atone. They understood each other. But Logan? He'd never understand the first thing about her.

But, wasn't that the whole point of talking? Sharing thoughts, experiences, sob-stories, until you understood each other? Faith wouldn't know. "Look, Logan, I'm not exactly great with all the heart-to-heart stuff, so how 'bout you start us off?" She spoke quickly, but tried not to sound nervous; but dogs could smell fear, couldn't they? Or was that bears? Either way, it would make sense for someone with super-human sense - like, for instance, Logan - to be able to smell fear. Not that it really matter. Wasn't as though she was afraid.

At Logan's blank look, she gazed down at the table cloth - white, of course, to fit in with the rest of this goddamn house - and began picking a hole in the material. Was it absolutely essential for him to make this so difficult? Probably, so it was best not to argue. Just get on with the elaborating. "What? Don't stare at me like I'm some defective nut. You think I'm going to spill my deepest, darkest thoughts if you don't make with the spilling yourself?"

The expression on Logan's face was definitely amused, though she couldn't see what was so funny. A raised eyebrow and slightly curled fist were all it took to stop the smirk and get him to sit down. A year or two previously, and Logan's face would have been seriously deformed merely for daring to smile while she was trying to be serious. Still, she had those 'violent tendencies' under control anger management, that's what the woman had called those classes in prison.

"So,...what'd you want to know?" And that was it; one simple question, and then they managed to talk for a few hours straight. Logan lit a cigar, and told her more about the 'x-men', the group of mutants he'd been involved with before the Order. After hearing about it, and hearing about the times they'd averted pretty much the complete annihilation of the human race, Faith couldn't help but wonder if he'd actually be doing more good up in New York. Sounded like the mutants needed him more than they did.

Faith helped herself to some beer when it was her turn to talk, as well as a large chunk of Andrew's labelled ice-cream, while telling him that the wound just felt dirty; she felt like she was polluted, somehow. And he just nodded, while she ranted, and it was kinda like therapy. Only without the ink-blots and shrinks.

Eventually, the conversation wound around to safer topics - swapping stories and apocalypses - and Andrew and Peter joined them around the kitchen table. It was weird, to say the least, but it felt good. Relaxing. Just for a few hours, Faith could indulge herself and pretend things were alright, which they weren't, and that she was ok, which she wasn't. She felt almost normal, something she hadn't had in a long time.

It was late in the afternoon by the time she realised that, firstly, she hadn't showered in three days, secondly, she was still starving and, thirdly, she was wearing the same clothes she'd worn as she'd walked into that warehouse. As such, she wasn't overly comfortable, and thought that something needed to be done about that. Faith quickly excused herself and headed towards her room.

The shower was just what she'd needed to make her feel properly human again, though getting a good look at the cut in the mirror probably wasn't what the doctor order. It looked nasty - not that she'd been expecting something pretty and out-lined in roses. But, still, this was ugly, even by her definition of the word. At least it wasn't infected; that would have been more than she could handle.

But once she'd washed and put some clean clothes on, she began to feel a little more human. A little more normal. Weird was a new top and some soap could do to a girl. Faith stared at her reflection for a little longer than she needed to, her eyes lingering on the red smudge on her neck. It stuck out violently, but there was no way of covering it up. Just leave it a few days - slayer healing powers would have it cleared away in no time. Somehow, that didn't make her feel any better about it.

She fell asleep completely by accident, after slumping onto the bed once she'd emerged from the bathroom. It was amazing how tired three full days of sleep could make you. At least she didn't ream; she'd she been in her coma, she had dreams. Vivid, frightening and downright awful dreams. Full of images that could still haunt her if she gave them the chance.

When she woke up several hours had gone by without her noticing. The clock behind her claimed it was 9 o'clock in the evening, but that couldn't be right. She'd not slept for that long, had she? "Faith, will you please meet the others in the training rooms?" Charlie didn't sound annoyed - Faith didn't think it was possible for him to sound annoyed - but...exasperated would probably cover it. He'd probably been asking after her for ages now.

Faith groaned as she sat up, but hurriedly found some shoes and began to make her way downstairs. Even though Charlie was fairly easy going, she guessed he was the type who appreciated punctuality. So, despite the fact that her head was still pounding, she forced herself to rush down and attend the meeting.

As she entered the training room, everyone's eyes switched to her, and from the expressions on their faces, she gathered they'd been waiting for more than just five minutes. Logan was slumped up against a wall looking cheery as ever, and as faith was feeling pretty much the same way, she sat down beside him. Well, beside him was a bit of an exaggeration. He wasn't exactly the sort of person you could get cosy with, so she sat down as close as awkwardness allowed.

"Have I missed anything?" She asked, but it was fairly obvious that she hadn't. Everyone was just standing around looking thoroughly bored, and if there'd been anything important happening there would probably have been an anxious buzz in the air. As such, she guessed that Charlie was just going to give them some nice motivational speeches, and then order them to do a few hundred hours of training.

Though, to be fair, Faith thought she probably should do some more training. What with being asleep for 3 days and being bitten and all, she was a bit out of practice. And she was one member of the group who really needed to practice. She didn't have any special metal claws or webs. When it came down to it, she didn't have a cool, slightly kinky whip like Indy, or even a sword like the one Jack lunged drunkenly at people with. Sometimes Faith didn't know why she was here. They had obviously managed fine without her for the past few days, and it wasn't as if she had any major part in The Order. Hell, even Andrew had more purpose than her. Okay, maybe she wasn't that useless. Or annoying. But, still, she felt out of place.

Of course, the gender issue didn't help matters either; one woman, giant group of men. No wonder she felt out of place. She was broken out of her thoughts - Logan never had given her an answer - when Charlie cleared his throat before beginning to talk. "Well, now everyone's here, we can get started."

"As you are all aware, the demons are forming an army." Gee, tell me something I don't know, Faith thought sarcastically. They were ambushed in a warehouse by a massive bunch of demons, beaten half to death, and in her case, bitten by vampires, and Charlie chose now to tell them that a demon army was being created. Faith had to hand it to him, he stated the obvious almost as much as Dorian. In her experience, people who stated the obvious were too stupid to think of anything else to say. Having thought this, she doubted Charlie was stupid. He was the one who had come up with the big idea to get them all together in this big house and fight the baddies as a team. So why didn't he just get on with his speech?

She stared down at her hands as he carried on talking, only half-listening to what he was saying. She'd heard most of it before, just not from him. It was the usual stuff - that even though the enemy was strong, they were stronger, how they all had a combined destiny, how they had to work together to succeed - but it sounded even more meaningless when Charlie was saying it. What did he know? All he seemed to do was send them head-first into fights they couldn't win, but he never actually got down to the hand-to-hand himself.

"Unfortunately, at the moment my resources appear to have dried up, so I don't actually have a great deal of information on our enemy." Faith leaned her head back against the wall, closing her eyes as she listened. Things seemed pretty dire, but they always did, didn't they? When they'd been fighting the First, they'd known squat about it, but they'd won anyway. A fact-file about a demon army would be pretty easy to rustle up; wasn't as though they'd be able to lie low. Anybody with suitable connections would at least be able to find out where they were based. And, being a slayer, Faith had the right connections.

"I know a bunch of people. If there's something going on, they'll know about it." Faith stood up as she spoke, thinking that they'd be best to get started as soon as possible. Beating information out of people took longer than you'd think, though Faith thought it'd be pretty easy with all the man-power they had.


	8. Snitching in Sewers

Beating up various snitches _had_ to be the worse job in the world. Worse than cleaning toilets, worse that collecting trash, hell, Faith'd go as far as to say it was even worse that exterminating rats for a living. Positively disgusting.

For a start, why couldn't they _ever _find somewhere decent to live? It was always seedy bars, low-life tenements and, Faith's personal favourite, the sewers. Couldn't they, just once, set themselves up in a nice-looking mansion, with an indoor _and_ outdoor pool, at least thirteen bedrooms and some nice leather seats? Maybe a wide-screen TV? Sure would make chasing them down a lot more pleasant.

As it was, Faith was tramping through sewers on her way to a demon's lair. The stink was clinging to her nose, but she was trying her best to ignore it. Behind her, the occasional gagging sounds suggested the Peter and Dorian weren't managing to ignore the smell that surrounded the three of them. Faith wished, not for the first time, that she was with the others.

They'd split up into two groups, to cover everywhere a bit quicker. Logan's group – Clark, Indy, Jack and Logan himself – had somehow managed to worm their way out of going to the _most_ unpleasant areas. Faith wondered if they'd have been better off letting Andrew journey into the sewers by himself; he'd have probably seen it as a great adventure. But, Andrew had been forced to remain at the mansion to 'research' anything he could about either telepathic demons or vampires. After all, wasn't he training to be a watcher?

Faith smiled as a small hole in the wall appeared. "Just through here, then that's us all done." With a resigned sigh, she got down on her knees – the opening was really only large enough for a dwarf to fit comfortably through – and began to crawl into the demon's lair. Really the things she had to do for this job; as if _walking_ through the sewers wasn't bad enough.

She could almost sense the expression of disgust on Dorian's face, and smirked to herself. Clamouring through sewers would hopefully take him down a notch or two. Maybe then he'd stop acting so up himself. After all, none of them had _forced_ him to be there, though you'd think they had from the way he acted.

She straightened up when she reached the square platform they'd been heading for. She stank to high heaven's, and would probably never be able to wear these clothes again – which was a shame, 'cause those were some kick-ass jeans – but at least they were there.

But the demon wasn't. The place as thoroughly abandoned. Completely devoid of life. "Shit." Faith punctuated her outburst by lashing out at an innocent table. Her kick sent it flying into a wall, along with the lamp and pack of cards that had been sitting on it. They'd missed him. Unbe-fucking-lievable. "He's not here," She stated uselessly as Peter and Dorian stood beside her, looking equally disappointed.

This was meant to be their last stop, and they'd been in some serious need of info. So far, they'd come up blank in the information department. This had been their last hope as far as any useable knowledge went. And Faith sure as hell didn't want to return to the mansion empty handed. Now where was that little freak of a demon?

"What now?" Peter asked, and Faith was surprised to see both him and Dorian looking at her for the answer; how the hell was she supposed to know? She fell into a strictly foot-solider category; her attempts at leading, back at B's during the apocalypse, hadn't exactly gone extremely well. So, unless these guys were planning on her getting them blown up, they'd better find someone else to follow.

"Now that is an excellent question." A voice resounded from the corner of the area that the demon claimed to be its home. Faith turned towards the corner where, in true Bond-movie style, a leather chair's back faced her. Any second now, a bald villain was going to turn around in it, stroking a white cat.

She took a step forwards, hating the way that Dorian and Peter fell into rank behind her. Why did she have to be the leader of this mini-mission? Dorian and Peter were both way more powerful than she was, much as she hated to admit it. Her fists rose, and her body tensed as she waited for the hidden figure to elaborate.

"Fortunately for you, I think I have the answer you're looking for." Faith didn't move a muscle, she stayed completely frozen. The only sign that a spell hadn't been cast over her was the steady rise and fall of her chest. She wanted to know what that chair was hiding, who was being concealed behind it, but didn't know how to find out quickly without getting herself dead.

Eventually she decided to just go ahead and take the chance. Hey, she had a frickin' superhero and an immortal on her side; she'd be alright. If you've got good back-up, you're alright. As long as your back-up doesn't go weird and hay-wire, which is why it's usually best to have a back-up plan in case your back-up backs out. She sucked in a breath, and then kicked at the chair.

"Don't kill me!" Alright, a high-pitched squeal wasn't quite the threatening attack she'd been expecting, but that was hardly surprising, seeing as she hadn't been expecting to see a watcher-in-training sitting in the chair either. "Don'tkillmedon'tkillmedon'tkillme… I'm too young to die!" Andrew exclaimed dramatically, and she was so goddamn annoyed that she had to slap him around the back of the head.

"Andrew, are you _trying_ to get yourself killed?" Faith took a step back after battering him a while longer, deciding that everyone would be pretty angry if she pulverised him. Sure, she'd probably be doing everyone a favour, if he was going to pull stunts like this, but she doubted that they would see it like that. In Logan's, and Clark's and everyone else's eyes, attacking Andrew would be seen as attempted murder. And Faith was really trying to give that up.

She kept backing up until she was behind Peter and Dorian, where they could safely grab onto her and hold her back if they needed to. Hopefully, for Andrew's sake, they wouldn't need to, but right now anger was bubbling so close to the surface that she felt it was only a matter of time before it completely spilled over.

"I was only trying to help, and, before you get on with the bodily harm, I'm just gonna point out that it's totally your fault for not letting me come with you guys." Andrew began to try and explain himself, but Faith wasn't going to give him the chance. She glared at him, and he had the good sense to give up trying to make them see that this was entirely their fault. He'd have ended up severely decapitated if he'd tried it.

"Andrew, go back home. You're not helping, you're just getting in the way." Faith said, irritably. At the hurt look he gave her, she added another reason to the stockpile of why she didn't want to have to be the leader. It meant she had to be the one to get rid of Andrew. Which meant that she was the one seen as the villain, and she'd had more than enough of being the bad one in her lifetime. She shook her head, and turned to leave.

Andrew's voice paused her mid-step. "But I can help! I was here, when the demon left." She whipped back around, wondering why he'd waited until now to tell them. Think of how much time they'd lost! While Andrew had been acting like a little drama-queen, the demon could have gone anywhere. They'd almost definitely lost it now. Unless the others had gotten something, this whole trip had been entirely useless. "If we go now, we could get him."

Faith grabbed his arm and pulled him out the chair, roughly. She hated that the wince of pain on his face caused her satisfaction, that she wished she could hurt him just a little bit more. Did that make her a monster? Yeah, but that was beside the point. "Point us in the right direction, fast, and I might be able to constrain myself from kicking your ass so hard you won't be sitting right for weeks." Her voice was low, scary, and very effective. Andrew actually let out a squeak, and she could sense Peter shift uncomfortably behind her. She was freaking them out. So what? Sometimes a slayer had to use force. Heh, most of the time a slayer had to use force.

"Sure, sure, I can lead you all to him," Faith released her grip on his arm, and motioned for him to get going. If she'd held on for much longer, she'd have probably snapped his arm. Right, breathe, Faith. Long breath in, two short ones out.

"Oh yeah, I'm the leader." Faith didn't need Logan's enhanced hearing to be able to hear Andrew's final comment as he led them out through a back passage.

* * *

A/N : Yes, yes, yes. Shortness. Sorreh.

Just thought that we ought to respond to X-Over's review, by saying that we're not sure about adding in extra characters at the moment. It's scary enough trying to juggle the ones we have right now! But, we'll bare your suggestion in mind, and if a bit comes up where we can include those characters, we'll try to.

Thanks to anyone and everyone else who reviewed : We love you!


	9. Intel

It didn't take long to find the demon. After, of course, Andrew had finally found his bearings and remembered which way it had gone. He'd managed to get them lost twice, the first time leading them up a manhole and an alleyway before deciding that the demon didn't actually go above ground. Faith didn't know what he'd expected would happen; he seemed to think that h would be able to lead them to the demon without knowing where the hell it was. Andrew's navigational skills were about as good as a dizzy drunk and blind dog. They did, by some stroke of luck, actually stumble upon the demon they were looking for.

It didn't take long to persuade him to give them the info they'd wanted. A few minutes, a few punches, and it was theirs. It hadn't exactly been hard. Although the demon looked terrifying – about twice her height, skin a violet colour, fangs that could shred bone – but was actually pathetic. One punch and he spilled his guts; names, places, shoe sizes, he'd given everything he knew about these guys. Mind you, she got the impression that he hadn't been pally with them anyway, so the information wasn't all that useful.

But, they did have information. Not much, but it was a start. A name. What kind of a name was Albert, for a demon? It made him sound like a butler. Not remotely threatening. Albert the Quentash demon. Jesus. She'd always taken the piss out of the Latin demonic names but…now she kinda got why demons used other languages for their namesakes.

Andrew now had a demon species to look up, and so had been banished to the library, while Clark and Peter were going to hit the computers until something came up. Meanwhile, Faith was once again redundant. Without a useful task to be carrying out – without something ugly to hit – she was useless. Maybe it would be worthwhile trying to pick up the books, but she thought she might turn a little homicidal if she had to sit in a confined space with Andrew for any length of time. Because she was useless in the research department, she had instead been gifted with the very important task of ordering pizza.

Turned out ordering pizza was much more difficult that she'd thought. For a start, no one liked the same stuff so she spent about ten minutes writing down a list and then another ten minutes actually ordering the stuff. She hated the phones; talking to someone when you couldn't see them was just weird. You didn't know how the person on the other end was reacting, and you could hit them, even if they deserved it. Phones were just goddamn annoying.

She slammed the phone down angrily when she finally managed to get all the orders in, as well as handing out the address to this place. It had occurred to her, while on the phone, that she didn't actually know where she was living. It was just the Mansion to her. Or HQ to Andrew. With an annoyed sigh, she wandered over to the white sofas and collapsed heavily onto on of them, really not caring that her black boots were going to leave black marks, especially after all the sewer-walking. She probably stank, come to think of it. But she was tired, and didn't plan on moving until the pizzas had arrived and been demolished, so the shower would just have to wait. Everyone else stank too, so the delivery guy was going to get a real nose full when he arrived. Heh. She might actually go up and answer the door, when it rang, just to see his face when the smell hit him.

She opened one eye and moved her arm so that she could see who was there with her. Logan and Jack. Dorian and Indy had gone off to get themselves cleaned up the second the arrived home. Weird, she'd expected that kind of vain behaviour from Dorian, but not Indiana. He'd seemed reasonably sane. Guess she wasn't as good a judge of character as she liked to think. Then again, she didn't exactly need Indiana to have a shower in order to drum up proof that she was a bad judge of character; she'd thought the Mayor was a good guy. Since he'd been on a super-demon kick at the time, her people-reading skills weren't really up to scratch.

As her weary eyes flicked over the two exhausted bodies of her housemates, it suddenly dawned on her that Jack didn't have a bottle of drink in his hand. It fact, he looked almost sober. Sure, he still had that glazed look in his eyes, and he managed to look as if he was going to keel over, even though he was sitting down. Even so, she hadn't seen him like this before. His brow was furrowed heavily, blacked fingers winding through his goatee, like he was trying to figure out something that was beyond his hung-over brain. Faith was tempted to ask what was on his mind, but though better of it. You never knew what you were going to get with Jack, as he came out with the strangest things. She didn't think anyone, not even the pirate himself, knew what was going on in that twisted maze of brain-cells.

However, Logan looked just as she'd expected him to. Serious and stony as ever, even if the edge had been taken off his glare by drooping eyelids. His posture was awkward, one hand on his forehead, the other folded untidily under his body. She wasn't surprised he looked weary; she couldn't say that she wouldn't be worn out after spending the entire day with a pirate, a stuck-in-the-sixties Indy and an angst-ridden superhero.

Faith's thoughts were interrupted when Andrew popped out of nowhere and leapt onto the couch energetically. "So," He chirped, "How's it hanging with the Order?" Faith could have really punched him in that instant. He paused, beaming, and looked around the three pathetic forms slumped over the furniture. By the time he reached Faith, just looking at the tragic faces seemed to drain him of any sign of happiness that he had shown before. His smile and shoulders dropped, his eyes took on the same tired look as theirs. Wow. This depression-thing was passing like a disease. It was contagious. Soon they would all be as depressed as each other, they would sit on this couch for the rest of their lives, getting up only to go to the bathroom and greet the pizza-delivery boy. They would soon lose the will to live; there would be no one here to motivate them, no voice of reason. Except, of course, Charlie.

"So, how are we all doing?" The disembodied voice sounded almost as annoying as Andrew's had. Faith couldn't figure out exactly what it was, but right now there was something about Charlie that really got under her skin. As her eyes flicked over to Jack, she could see that she wasn't the only one. Jack's face had a look of distrust written all over it. When his question got no reply, Charlie quickly moved on. "Do we have any new leads on who – or, indeed, what – this Albert demon is? Any history on him? Strengths? Weaknesses?" It was kinda like having an invisible Giles around.

But, at the mention of the demon, Andrew perked up again. "I tried to do some research on the net, but the demon database I used didn't have any info on Albert, and the other sites needed at least a 2.5 giga-watt memory chip, and it's extremely unlikely that this laptop has anything near that much. I mean, Warren used to have a computer with a C12 bb flash memory, and I...uh…don't really know what that means, but it was _way_ fasters, it had to be, he let me use it when I was doing that personal project on scene faults in the Star Wars movies…" He stopped for a few seconds to take a breath between the babble, and looked around to see the confused expressions surrounding him. Faith was lost in all that, so who knew how Jack was taking it; guy was from a time period where computers hadn't even been invented. Andrew dropped his gaze, "I didn't find anything."

Andrew was such a geek. She bet he spent every night in his room on his laptop, in chat-room talking to the other pale computer geeks about how Princess Leia was _so_ hot, and how Jedi should because a real religion. He could at least pretend to be normal when he was around other humans, instead of ranting on about stuff Faith didn't understand.

"Thank you for that, Andrew," The voice sounded a little startled. Charlie probably hadn't realised until that moment that Andrew's life was so dramatically empty. Faith wasn't surprised. She hadn't even known that there were such tragic cases until she had met Andrew. "Well, I suggest that you each try to think of any contacts you have, anyone who could help with the research. It is _vital_ that we learn who Albert is, and, more importantly, what he's planning."

How did it come to this? How could things have possibly got so bad that Faith had to ask Angel for a favour? She'd already had to endure the most awkward phone conversation _ever_ with Buffy to try and get Angel's new number – turned out he'd upgraded to CEO of Wolfram and Hart without even telling her – and then she'd had to suffer even further as she played her part in yet another awkward conversation, this time with Angel. It'd been nice to hear his voice again, but seeing as the last time they'd met he'd – _No, _not him, Angelus – had tried to kill her, things were a bit weird.

At least Angel had agreed to help them. With all of Wolfram and Hart's resources, they'd find something in no time. He said he'd call back when they had something, but Faith was not going to be the one to answer that call. She'd had her fair share of dealings with the phone for one day. Let Andrew answer it.

She collected the long empty pizza boxes in one hand, with the mugs skilfully balanced on the other, and began the balancing act that was walking to the kitchen sink. She dumped the mugs with a feeling of triumph; hadn't smashed even one. Those slayer-skills were useful for something. She turned to find Jack's face two inches away from hers, his breath invading her nostrils and making her recoil. Jesus…why did he have to do that? Creep up on people? Angel did it too. She hated that.

"Meet me in my room, five minutes." He spun around, and then pottered shakily upstairs. A few minutes later, Faith heard his bedroom door close loudly behind him.

O-kay…maybe Jack was competing with Andrew for the weird-of-the-year award. What the hell did he want her in his room for? If that drunken slob wanted what Faith thought he wanted, he was in for one hell of a nasty shock. It took her a while to calm now, and think about what had just happened. She doubted that Jack was hitting on her; he knew better than that, surely? So what was it about? And why couldn't he talk out here? It wasn't as if there was anyone around. Everyone had cleared off after the pizzas had been demolished.

Faith shook her head slowly as she absent-mindedly washed the mugs in the non-soapy cold water, as she couldn't see the washing-up liquid anywhere nearby, and wasn't patient enough to wait for the water to heat up. Jack was definitely up to something, she mused. He had been so distant all day. Not that he wasn't normally distant, but he had been super-extremely-distant. Cautious, almost paranoid about talking to her out here.

Eventually, she gave up on the cups, and began to head up to Jack's bedroom. This had to be a mistake, she knew it, but curiosity would kill her if she didn't give in and just go and see what was going on.


End file.
